A/N: I hope you all can tell that Christmas is one of my favorite holidays.

6th year – Christmas Eve

It turns out Rose got even more drunk for this year's Christmas celebration than the last. It may have had to do something with the fact that she broke up with Rowan before holidays. Although, from what Scorpius knew, Rose had initiated the split.

He only knew this because Al told him. It wasn't that he had asked Al about it. No, it had just come up casually in conversation. She is Al's cousin after all. It was normal to talk about family with your best friend. Especially when they do something wonderf- …er, significant… like breaking up with a boyfriend.

Scorpius was only relieved to hear about it because that would mean Gryffindor has two teammates who were exes. And how could that possibly end up well for the Quidditch team? Which meant, Slytherin had a great chance of winning this year. Slytherin had won the Quidditch finals in his 4th year, and Gryffindor had won in his 5th. It was only right for Slytherin to win in his 6th.

Regardless of why they broke up, though, the word "Rowan" and the word "boyfriend" or anything to do with a relationship was considered forbidden during Christmas. Which was fine for Scorpius, who had also dumped his latest girlfriend before the holidays. He didn't really do long-term relationships, especially over the holidays. The only people allowed to bring significant others to the celebration were Teddy and Victoire for obvious reasons (they were already married with a child after all!)

While looking around the room for a specific redhead (for no reason other than to her tease her for her inability to hold her alcohol), he ended up making eye contact with James Potter. Half of the most mischievous pair at Hogwarts since Fred and George Weasley.

James Potter approached Scorpius and swung an arm around his shoulders.

Scorpius didn't quite get why James Potter was nice to him all these years and why he was being extra friendly to him now, even when he wasn't sober. Wasn't he his enemy's Quidditch captain? Gryffindor golden boy? Overprotective older cousin? Hater of Slytherins?

Maybe not because James was laughing and telling Scorpius to join him and Fred in conversation with a genuine smile.

"Scorpius, I have to say, I approve of you." James slurred out with a sloppy grin on his face.

Scorpius was amused.

He also wondered how James was keeping his glasses in place when he was swaying so much.

"Yes, we like you, Scorp mate." Fred chimed in while squeezing himself into their strange huddle.

"Can I ask why?" Scorpius probed, genuinely curious and somewhat terrified of the mischievous pair.

"Because your pranks are GENIUS," James exclaimed, jumping up and down like a kid on Christmas (well, he kind of literally was a kid on Christmas).

Scorpius was confused. James and Fred liked him because of his pranks against their cousin.

"Er... I thought you would hate me for them? I pulled them on your cousin?"

"Oh, but that's why we appreciated them. Your pranks were always so harmless compared to hers. Never truly hurt her. She would try to light you on fire or throw you off the astronomy tower and you would go and charm the ends of her quill off or make it so that she would always run out of ink after one line of writing. You would retaliate against the craziest stunts with daily inconveniences, and that made her FURIOUS. You made her angrier with those small things than she ever made you. I have to admit, I was impressed."

"We almost thought about recruiting you. But, alas, you were a Slytherin. What wasted talent." Fred added in, sighing for good measure.

"Oh, what could have been if you had just chosen Gryffindor," James lamented.

Scorpius heard a barking laugh behind him.

"Who was the one who asked why I was talking to the 'slimy Malfoy kid' when I first met him on the train?" Albus asked, entering into their conversation with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, he's still a bit icky with his Slytherin germs, but I will have to give credit where credit is due," James said with a sheepish but also wolf-like grin.

Albus laughed and smacked his brother playfully on the back of the head.

"But Scorpius! We haven't been able to see any of your glorious pranks recently. It's been almost a year! Let us know before the next so we can have a front row seat," Fred added before dragging James to the other side of the room to grab another spiked eggnog, leaving a confused Scorpius behind.

Had it really almost been a year since their last prank? To be honest, he didn't even remember the last time he and Rose had properly argued. When was the last time he had been angry with her?

He looked over at the woman in question, Rose Weasley, who was standing at the other side of the Burrow basement. She hadn't yet started the singing portion of her night, but she was currently in the "refusing to admit she's drunk and should stop drinking" phase. He saw Roxanne Weasley, the bartender for the night, start cursing in French at Rose's puppy dog eyes asking for another drink.

He tried to think over the past year. Rose still shot him dirty looks once in a while. She never called him by his first name after that one time in the summer. She still made a disgusted face when anyone expressed interest in him or rolled her eyes when anyone complimented him. She still dished out scathing remarks and unwelcome insults.

But she also didn't yell at him just for existing or boast about all her different plots to murder him anymore. She occasionally even tolerated his appearance at dinner with Al. She sometimes even laughed in his presence or asked him a question about coursework. He even briefly remembered a time where she voluntarily sat next to him in a class when all the other seats were taken without a fuss.

They had been... rather civil actually.

He watched as the drunk girl started walking towards a couch in the corner of the room and suddenly announced that it would be the "Karaoke corner." She began singing what couldn't possibly be a Christmas song with all the raunchy lyrics she expelled. It couldn't even be called Karaoke because there was no background music whatsoever. (Scorpius was well aware of what Karaoke was from his parents' extensive collection of muggle movies and from his continued coursework in Muggle Studies). Against his better judgment, he left Albus, who was already participating in conversation with Teddy Lupin about his newborn son Olivier, and walked over to the couch to sit down beside her.

Drunk Rose was dressed in her Weasley Christmas sweater, which was a maroon color that definitely clashed with her hair. He wondered if maybe he should tell Grandma Weasley that navy is a much better color for Rose since it went well with her eyes, and then he told himself that's entirely none of his business and he should not care one bit what kind of color would look good with Rose's eyes.

"You're not allowed to sit here," Rose said through squinted eyes.

Apparently, even Drunk Rose knew her boundaries.

Or maybe not.

Because Drunk Rose was suddenly a little bit too close to a now Tipsy Scorpius Malfoy in an awfully large couch. It was already a new realization for him that Rose could even stand to be in the same room as him might as well on the same couch cushion. His mind was fried.

She was close enough that Scorpius felt Rose's stocking-covered thigh brush against his hand. He was surprised at the contact his hand had with the fabric and the warmth, and he tried not to imagine what it would feel like to grip that same thigh with the palm of his hand instead.

His hand twitched.

She was staring at him with her dark blue eyes that still took up way too much of her face. She wasn't glaring at him like she usually would after an unfriendly greeting like that. Instead, she had a playful smirk on her lips and a frisky look in her eyes.

Scorpius was floored. Here was Rose Weasley. Ugly-sweater-clothed, mascara-smudged, messy-haired, and smirking. Yet, somehow, she was quite possibly the prettiest he'd ever seen her. Was it because he had never seen her so close?

Scorpius made his mind take a big step back. She was just tolerable to look at. He was just surprised that she wasn't as ugly as in his memory. That's all.

Though, to be perfectly honest, he had never really thought she was ugly at all. He had never called her ugly either. He had never commented on her appearance at all actually. Maybe there was a reason for this omission but Scorpius refused to think so. No special reason whatsoever.

"Why am I not allowed to sit here, exactly?" Scorpius asked, waiting for the scathing reply that never came.

Drunk Rose was thinking about what to say, almost as if she had forgotten she told him not to sit there in the first place. Suddenly, her face filled with recognition.

"Because.. you're not going to sing with me!" she whined.

Scorpius laughed as the small girl looked at him sternly. She looked almost offended.

"I can't sing, Rosie."

He didn't remember the last time he called her that. He only ever called her that to tease her when they were younger, but right now, he didn't really want to call her "Weasley," and "Rose" just sounded too personal.

"Anyone can sing!"

"Not me. I'm not going to give you another reason to hate me once your ears bleed from my singing."

"I don't hate you, Scorpius."

Well, that was news to both of them.

But Drunk Rose didn't seem to realize what was said. And Tipsy Scorpius was too caught up in not ruining this conversation to comment on it. Plus, she had called him Scorpius, and he didn't mind being called Scorpius. Even if it wasn't Sober Rose who did it.

"Well, then, Rosie. I can't sing, but I can cheer you on when you do."

Drunk Rose seemed to contemplate this response for a second before looking pleased to have a wiling audience since all her cousins seemed to be occupied. She sat up straighter in the couch, tidying up her hair and pulling a loose curl behind her ear. She held her hand up to her mouth as if she was holding a microphone in her hand. She met his eyes and took in a deep breath as if preparing for a performance of a lifetime.

Would it be wrong for this Tipsy Scorpius to maybe, just maybe, find this Drunk Rose a little fucking adorable?

As she sang completely off-tune to a muggle song that Scorpius had never heard of in his life, Tipsy Scorpius clapped along and even made sure to give her a standing ovation.

He didn't know what to make of it when she looked at him intently after her performance, more intensely than anyone had ever looked at him before. He wondered what crazy series of events had made it so that he had ended up there, on a couch with Rose Weasley, much too close for personal comfort. And he didn't hate it, and she wasn't hexing him. In fact, she was giving him a small smile.

He held his breath as she leaned her head toward him and silently cursed to himself at how nervous he felt. He felt her brush her lips softly against his cheek. It was the lightest of touches, the kind of light touch that he could barely feel, but it somehow left a burning imprint on his skin.

Just a friendly kiss on the cheek between enemies. Nothing to see here.

He was thankful when he looked around the room and noticed that nobody else had seen this event because that was the one and only time that Scorpius Malfoy had ever blushed.

He breathed a sigh of relief when Rose bounced away from him to find another audience member for her next performance.

What would he had done if she had stayed? He did not know and he most certainly didn't want to find out. Because Rose's lips were softer than he wanted them to be and her eyes were almost.. sparkly. And she smelled of Christmas after spending the whole day baking cinnamon cookies and pumpkin pie with her grandmother. It was all too much for Scorpius Malfoy.

He avoided her and her soft lips the entire rest of the night, but he did note that she never gave another person a kiss on the cheek after they watched her performance and tried to suppress the lingering curiosity that maybe the kiss hadn't just been fan service.

Maybe Christmas wasn't so bad after all as he replaced memories of throwing up slugs with memories of red hair, blue eyes, the smell of Christmas, horrendously off-key singing, and a simple kiss on the cheek.

Please review to let me know your thoughts. I really thrive off feedback of any sort!

Thank you for the interest thus far.

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